How To Send Data From Flash To ASP/PHP Without A Page Refresh
Wednesday, November 28th, 2007Categories: Adobe Flash
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This article will deal the how to of sending form data from Adobe Flash to your PHP/ASP file so it can be inserted into a database (or manipulated for whatever other reason). The trick is making sure a new window doesn’t popup and the page doesn’t refresh to run through the ASP/PHP code. That’s the one issue I’ve noticed with some downloadable example of contact or email form examples. A new window pops up and often says, Thanks for the email! I’ll give a really bare-bones example where no new windows popup and the window containing your Flash isn’t refresh. This articles example will show an example done in ASP, but this will work with any other programming language.
NOTE: This is not for beginners.
Components
- Flash File
- HTML with Flash File
- ASP/PHP/etc Page That Will Process Form Data
- HTML page with Frames.
Concept
What we’re going to do is set up a Flash File that will simply send form data to an ASP file. Our HTML page with frames will have two frames. One frame will contain the HTML with our Flash, the second will contain a sandbox that will allow the ASP file to refresh without ever affecting the main page we’re browsing. We’re going to hide the second frame so that we don’t ever see the refreshes happening.
I know what you’re thinking, frames are lame. In our example though, you won’t even notice it being there.
Flash File
Create a new Flash file, select the first blank frame you’re given, bring up the ActionScript window and copy and paste the following code:
stop();
varsToSend = new LoadVars();
varsToSend.firstVar=”Pat-Burt”;
varsToSend.send(“intoDatabase.asp”,”process”,”POST”);
Explanation
stop – makes sure that your Flash movie doesn’t loop and constantly send “Pat-Burt” to your ASP file.
varsToSend – our LoadVars() object that contains all the variables we’ll be sending to our ASP file.
firstVar – a variable, you can have any number of these.
send – sends the vars in varsToSend to intoDatabase.asp
process – the frame name (we’ll use this later)
post – how we’re sending the data to the database
HTML Frame Page
Create a new HTML page, strip the body tags and throw this in:
<FRAMESET rows=”100%, 1″ >
<FRAME src=”flash.html” name=”flash” noresize frameborder=”0″>
<FRAME src=”intoDatabase.asp” name=”process” noresize scrolling=”no” frameborder=”0″>
</FRAMESET>
Explanation
Frameset – creates the frames, defines the first to have 100% height, and the second to have a height of 1 pixel.
flash.html – Our HTML file with our Flash file inserted. It is named “flash”.
process.html – Our HTML file where our ASP file will be reloaded to insert data into the database. It’s located in the frame sized as 1 pixel.
ASP File
This is the simplest version I could present. Keep in mind you will need to define db which should reference your connection string to your database.
db.execute(“INSERT INTO database (message) VALUES (‘”&request.form(“firstVar”)&”‘)” )
Explanation
request.form(“firstVar”) – the name of the variable in our Flash file
database – our database name
message – the column name in our database
HTML with Flash File
Insert your Flash file in whatever form you prefer. I recommend SWFObject.
Put Them All Together And Make Sure You…
- Name the HTML file with your Flash: flash.html
- Name your ASP file (in this example) to intoDatabase.asp
- Provide a <noframes /> alternative where the page is loaded in a new window in the off chance someone has frames turned off
- Don’t get to complicated. Get everything working in its simplest form before you add extra features
Good luck, hope that helps. 
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March 10th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Patrick, Thanks for this article. I’m working on a simple flash program for personal use and this comes in quite handy. Thanks again!
March 10th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
My pleasure. If you need any help with anything else, let me know.
March 18th, 2008 at 2:53 am
hi
I need to create flash character builder in flash can u help me plz
March 18th, 2008 at 8:06 am
Hi Vimalraj, I suspect you’re looking more for the basics… Somethings this article doesn’t cover. Consider lynda.com or kirupa.com for learning the basic strings of Flash and Actionscript.
June 17th, 2008 at 5:23 am
Flash and PHP – Send and Receive data
http://flashactionscriptandanimation.blogspot.com/2008/06/flash-and-php-send-and-receive-data.html
June 17th, 2008 at 8:29 am
Thanks for the link Anil.
November 5th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Hi,
I am able to send my data by mail using php which collect data from my flash form.
The next step i want to achieve will be sending these data from php or flash (whatever i need to use) to populate an html page. Could you please help me??
Thanks for any help,
Regards,
Jerome
November 21st, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Hi patrick,
I was reviewing your post and was wondering if you may have encounbered an issue i am having. I am submitting some data to an ASP page using loadVars in a Flash 8 AS2 file. The data is a series of coordinates and so the amount of data gets pretty big. I am not aware, however of a size limitation for data which is POSTed to a script. And yet this does fail when the data length gets too large.
Any thoughts?
Regards,
Kit
November 22nd, 2008 at 12:06 am
There shouldn’t be a limit to what’s being posted.. hm. is somethign happening with apostrophes? when the data length gets too large, do you have some dodgy characters that might be getting included?
November 22nd, 2008 at 8:09 am
Ya i thought that too. it was really strange. I have been trying to debug using Firebug in Firefox and monitoring the Net…but none of the Flash data that was posting was being shown. It appears (after creatiing a HTML form and submitting data to the same ASP processing script, that the field that contains the coordinates is being truncated and causing a ODBC Drivers error ’80040e21′
[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver]String data, right truncation . So i guess i am debugging ASP now.
THanks for the update, i will keep you posted.
November 22nd, 2008 at 11:25 am
In SQL, make sure your field type is set to something like “varchar(MAX)” or “text” so there isn’t a hard cap on how much you can throw into the DB.
December 23rd, 2008 at 9:42 am
Hi Patrick,
I’m running a flash movie under a frameset which popups a window using loadvars’ send method with data being send by POST. However in IE6, the poped up window is not able to receive any POST data. The calling java servlet too getting null parameters.It is not either maintaining the session too. If data sent through GET, it works perfectly
This happens only in IE as in Firefox it works fine. Any clue on this problem?
January 9th, 2009 at 11:22 am
I need something like this.
I’ve done this in the past with .asp server side includes and i can’t remember how i did it.
I have a flash header w/nav that resides in a .asp page. It needs to load some elements of a page so i don’t have to do a complete page refresh. I don’t need a database to communicate back to the flash or to the content… just and index.asp w/flash nav changing the include on the page.
PLEASE HELP!
February 9th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
seems I get a pop-up of the intoDatabase.asp. The form submission works, but it is a bummer that there is also a pop-up. I am using IE7, have not tested on other browsers….
May 12th, 2009 at 5:15 am
would it be possible for anyone to sende a zipped folder with the requred files despribet in the artical above (of cause with the db login blanked out). I belief that i’m fairly close on getting this to work, but I’m not sure if I have understand everything correct. A sampel of a set up that works would be a great help!
June 23rd, 2009 at 3:56 pm
HI PAT.
I have creatied a small game in flash AS2. I would like to maintain the high score of multiple users that play it as it is available in other online flash games. Can u help.. please…
Thanx a lot.
July 5th, 2009 at 3:32 am
Hi Pat!
Excellent very very helpfull solution!
I met some cross-domain issues and your article resolve them all!
Thanks, cheers!
May 5th, 2010 at 11:28 pm
NiksNita say: Quite right! I think, what is it excellent idea.
_____________
ciallis
Missouri
0
August 26th, 2010 at 3:01 am
Hi,
I am facing data limit.
is there any limit to send xmlData to ASP page using AS 2.0. send Method ?
Thanks
Girish
April 21st, 2011 at 12:56 pm
working perfectly … tested today… exactly what im looking for … after several boring hours of googleing….
thanks a lot…
January 22nd, 2012 at 11:59 am
Hi All,
my name is dewa,
i have the problem to passing data from flash to asp classic, may somebody help me ?? please
here my action script 2 :
on (press) {
var sendv:LoadVars = new LoadVars;
var receive:LoadVars = new LoadVars;
var resultL:String;
sendv.toASPnip = nip_txt.text;
_root.nip = nip_txt.text;
_root.idgame = 1;
sendv.toASPidgame = _root.idgame;
sendv.sendAndLoad(“http://localhost/janganemberdong/asp/login.asp”,receive,”POST”);
receive.onLoad = function(){
resultL = “test”;//this.toFlash;
if (resultL == “suc”) {
_root.gotoAndPlay(“3″);
}else{
if (resultL == “errGamePlay”){
_root.gotoAndPlay(“11″);
}else {
stop();
}
}
}
}
and he my asp classic :
0 then
response.write(“&toFlash=suc”)
end if
rs.close
set rs = nothing
%>
i hope someone can help me … please
i need some help guys,
thanks,